A Fig Tree Dies in Brooklyn, and in Other Boroughs

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Manhattan suffered, too: a struggling fig tree in Morningside Heights.CreditYana Paskova for The New York Times

By Leah Koenig

July 11, 2014

By late spring, Nelson Ryland knew that something was wrong. Normally, the fig trees in his backyard in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, would be plush with verdant leaves and sending up sprays of new branches. This year, though, while the Bronx seedless grape vine, the hydrangea bushes and the black-eyed Susans in his garden flourished, his eight fig trees stood stark and lifeless.

As the founder of Flatbush Fig Farm, a small side business he has run with his three young sons since 2011 selling fig cuttings to gardeners across the city, Mr. Ryland, a film editor, had cause for concern. About 95 percent of the 200 cuttings he took in December — foot-long branch clippings he incubates in glass jars spread like a makeshift urban jungle inside his Victorian-style home — had withered or were severely damaged, victims of early cold weather.

“Normally, if you change the water regularly, 100 percent of the cuttings should survive,” he said. “It is a no-brainer. This year they all just started dying.”

It was not only Mr. Ryland’s fig trees that stood bare and ruined. Across the region, what had seemed to be hardy fig trees have failed to blossom this spring. By May, alarmed contributors to the Figs 4 Fun online forum were adding their tales of woe to the thread titled “95% if not all fig trees died in Queens NY. Disaster.” Not even Brooklyn Botanic Garden was spared: Of the 17 fig trees there, four died, and the remainder were pruned back to the ground.

The culprit was neither blight nor the appearance of an invasive, fruit-hungry beetle. It was cold weather, and plenty of it. Last winter, after all, was a season defined by polar vortexes and frigid temperatures that lingered well into spring.

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Nelson Ryland last Sunday with his largest fig tree, which he inherited when he bought his home in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.CreditOzier Muhammad/The New York Times

“I don’t think I have seen a fig tree that is not at least seriously damaged,” said Bill Logan, who owns the landscaping company Urban Arborists. He said calls from clients about fig trees skyrocketed this spring. “The recently planted ones are toast.”

It may seem remarkable that a plant that is most at home in the Mediterranean has such an established presence in New York City. But the fig tree’s prominence in New York can be traced to immigrants from Italy and Greece who refused to leave their cherished late-summer fruit behind.

Throughout the early to mid-20th century, they would pack cuttings in their suitcases and plant them in their yards upon arrival, particularly in Brooklyn. “As long as it was kept moist, a dormant cutting would survive quite well on the boat ride,” said Lee Reich, a New Paltz-based horticulturist and author of several fruit and gardening books. And fortunately for the immigrants, Mr. Reich said, the agricultural customs checks at Ellis Island were apparently not very thorough.

Over the last decade, a new crop of do-it-yourself gardeners has begun to show interest in planting fruit trees. The New York pedigree of the fig tree, and its seemingly simple care requirements, made it a popular choice. According to Mr. Reich’s book “Grow Fruit Naturally,” figs fruit well with little or no maintenance and have few pest problems. And yet they are not entirely immune to stress.

Laena McCarthy, who owns a small-batch preserves company, Anarchy in a Jar, lost the five-foot potted fig tree she keeps on her deck in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. “It moved with me to three different apartments and lived through eight New York winters, but tragically, not this one,” she said. “I keep hoping it will suddenly spring back to life, but no luck yet.”

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This year, nearly all of the fig-tree cuttings he made to sell died.CreditOzier Muhammad/The New York Times

And in Morningside Heights, Liz Wiesen said the winter reduced the enormous tree in the courtyard of the housing cooperative where she lives to a bundle of bare limbs. For the past 15 years, the tree had served as a source of fresh fruit, a shady gathering place for neighbors and a good spot for games of hide and seek.

These days, said Ms. Wiesen, who also volunteers on the co-op’s grounds committee, “things are looking very Addams Family on our upper lawn. The mockingbirds perched in the branches are the only ones that feel good about the situation.”

But recently, there have been some encouraging signs. In early July, a promisingly thick underbrush of fig leaves started sprouting at the base of the otherwise lifeless-looking tree.

And at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Maeve Turner, the herb garden curator, said: “Thanks to the warm, sunny weather in late June and early July, our trees are rallying. But they are focused on rebuilding their leaves and branches, so I doubt if we will see any actual figs this summer.”

For most of their history in New York, fig trees have been tended by devoted gardeners, and their caretakers found ways to adapt to the weather. In neighborhoods like Bay Ridge, Carroll Gardens and Astoria, which are home to established Italian and Greek communities, it was common to see backyard fig trees dressed for winter in burlap, old carpets or even linoleum to insulate them from the freezing temperatures. “People took a lot of pride in the ritual of wrapping their trees,” said Christopher Roddick, an arborist at Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

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A fig tree with its protective winter wrapping in the Mill Basin neighborhood of Brooklyn in 1996.CreditEdward Coppola

Many of the newer fig owners, however, are unfamiliar with the practice of wrapping trees, or have dismissed it as too burdensome. And thanks to climate change, it is a practice that has become increasingly unnecessary.

“Zone 7 and warmer is typically considered safe for fig trees,” Mr. Logan said, referring to the United States Department of Agriculture’s Plant Hardiness Zone Map that gardeners rely on to decide what plants to grow. The most recently updated map, released in 2012, reclassified parts of New York City’s zone from 6 to a warmer 7. “We used to have brutal winters like last one’s every four or five years, but we have gotten used to climate change’s impacts,” Mr. Logan said. “This year really caught people off guard.”

Some fig tree owners were traumatized into action. In the past, Ms. McCarthy said her winterizing ritual included layering rich compost and cocoa bean husks over the soil, but not wrapping. “I was too cavalier,” she said. Going forward, she resolved to not leave anything up to chance. “I got a new tree this year, and I am covering it in burlap as soon as the first frost hits.”

But one cold winter is not enough to persuade everyone to abandon old habits. Mr. Ryland, for example, said he would be certain to take cuttings for next year’s customers before the temperatures dropped to freezing. But he has no plans to wrap his trees this coming winter.

“I have seen how tough fig trees can be,” he said.

When he first moved into his house in Ditmas Park 10 years ago, he surveyed the backyard and found “a very dead-looking, unknown tree.” He chopped it down. The next spring, it sprouted from the stump and produced juicy figs the next summer.

“Unless it becomes clear that New York is getting colder again, I do not see the need,” Mr. Ryland said. Meanwhile, a few tiny fruit buds recently appeared on his oldest and most established tree — the same workhorse he cut down a decade ago. “We probably won’t get as many figs as usual,” he said. “But it is a promising sign.”